October 05, 2011

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

“Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have."

[Wired, February 1996]

RIP Steve Jobs. Here's to making technology simple and easy to use. May that continue to happen for many years to come.

Recently, a group of four MBA students from SFU's Beedie School of Business (including myself) undertook a month-long trip to Singapore to complete a survey on green practices in that country's economically important hotel sector. The trip was an incredible exposure to Asia, and a great way to put our MBA skils to work.

A bit of background on sustainability....

Basically, the term "CSR," corporate social responsibility, came into vogue in recent decades, and is still a very important concept for businesses to come to terms with. To some extent, it is a reaction of the corporate community to some of the major environmental and political counter-culture of recent years (and specific watershed events such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which helped launch sustainability organizations like Ceres, for example). Noted chicago school economist, Milton Freidman perhaps best expressed the viewpoint of an older generation of business leaders when he described the social responsibility of business as 'doing business' (and nothing else). New corporate leaders began to understand that while formally accountable to shareholders, they needed a broad social and environmental "license to operate" as well. To safeguard this, they tended to invest heavily in the public relations machinery of their business, ensuring that they were broadly interpreted as responsible, even if their specific practices were less so. The limitations of this framework became clear, however ,with terms like 'green-washing' being leveled at firms which were seen as duplicitious - e.g. spending more money on marketing their green-ness than really making real changes (interestingly, the term, coined by Jay Westerveld in a 1986 essay - was related to a New York hotel's towel & linen reuse program)

Sustainability, another big concept, can be defined in many ways. Perhaps the simplest definition involves operating a business in such a way that it could continue indefinitely; not consuming limmited resources, or impacting the physical environment negatively such that future generations would be deprived of their livelyhoods.

* Water reduction systems such as low-flush, low litre-per-flush toilets

* Presence of environmental policies, green teams and other policy / organizational features

The research tool (survey) also used questions from prior surveys conducted in other regions of the world (New Zealand, China, Jordan, Malaysia, USA, Poland, Sweden, etc) in order to shed some light on the relative standing of Singaporean hotels compared to international peers.

Along the way, I had the opportunity to meet some amazing sustainability & engineering professionals in these hotels, who completely impressed our team with their expertise, professionalism and sincere dedication to their work. Its always a treat to go into a meeting with an engineer, or operations manager, only to discover that they cannot stop talking about their trade and the various initiatives they are pursuing to make specific changes happen.

A blog on our experiences can be found at : http://sfumbasinsingapore.blogspot.com/

July 23, 2007

I just read with great enthusiasm an article by Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management, and Gordon Nixon, President and CEO, Royal Bank of Canada.

Basically, the article argues that the years 1990-2030 will involve a fundamental change in corporate structure in the world, from a world of many industrial centres and thousands of large corporations, to a world where a few major regions (and correspondingly countries) dominate activity in a particular industrial sector. Think Microsoft's domination of operating systems, or Hollywood's domination of movies. The authors refer to this phenomenon as "spikiness". The nations that put in place effective policies to make sure their nations companies are the ones that house "spiky" clusters of powerful companies are the ones with a more secure, safe future. The whole concern with "hollowing out" of national industries by larger international buyers and conglomerates is basically the symptom of this larger economic reorganization - a kind of second industrial revolution. The authors argue that the companies that positioned themselves well to take advantage of, and be leaders in the first industrial revolution dominated the global economy for the next century, e.g. Britain's succesful practice of the industrial revolution between 1780-1820 enabled it to be a world power for most of the next century. Similarly, nations that attract, retain and nuture clusters of spiky industries will be the nations whose companies acquire other companies, rather than the other way around. The authors also make some excellent arguments about tax policy and how poorly Canada's government is equipped to nurture strong, Canadian companies:

"Since 2003, seven companies, a full 15% of our precious stock of companies ceased to be Canadian companies and this trend may be accelerating. One company exited the list in a perfectly happy way - Placer Dome was acquired by Barrick, another Canadian company on the list. However, six were acquired by foreign firms, half ow hich (ATI, Domtar, and Masonite) were firmst hat built a global position between 1985 and 2003. that is a lot of hard Canadian work to get taken out by a foreign investor".

The authors then expose the inadequacy of current left/right thinking on tax. I just LOVE this paragraph:

"There is a very interesting relationship between corporate taxation strategy and socialist background: the more socialist the ethos of the country, the more the country has figured out how to be intelligent about corporate income taxation. In addition to Scandinavia clocking in at 19.6% the four OECD countries that were formerly Communist-controlled average a mere 14.2%. It is ironic indeed thatthe socialists are more pragmatic rather than ideological about business taxation. Canadian policy falls prey to an important categorical fallacy in respect to corporate taxation. Our logic of fairness holds that poor people make little income and should pay little tax; middle class people make moderate income and should pay moderate taxes; rich people earn lots of income and should pay high taxes; and corporations earn huge income and should pay really high taxes. But corporations are a different category altoghether; they aren't like rich people only richer. They are legal constructions whose purpose in the modern economy is to invest, innovate and create high-paying jobs. Taxing them highly, as all the socialists have figured out, works against them investing, innovating and creating high-paying jobs. As the socialists have figured out, the way to tax corporate activity is to tax at a personal level the earnings that rich people collect from the ownership of corporations....the question is not lower taxation overrall; that is not the fundamental problem. The question is not left versus right; that is a red herring. The question is how to structure taxation so that corporations have the best chance of becoming global leaders and well-to-do Canadian individuals pay their fair share of the overral tax burden".

A question I have for critics of Canadian tax policy, who argue Corporate taxes should be raised (Jack Layton?), would be whether those critics would be happier with non-Canadian corporations paying higher tax down the road? Small Canadian corporations with often competitiveness-handicapping regulatory restrictions face an uphill battle on the global scene; tax them and they will fall, only to give way to larger conglomerates that can use their market power to balance out the affect of an adverse business tax environment.

March 15, 2007

The Dow Jones industrial average declined 243 points (1.97%) today - the largest decline since Feb 27th (albeit not the longest span of time ever). In any case, this is one nice peice of bad news since the Chinese stock market rattled global investors last week. A consensus among analysts, and the business press (atleast the Economist anyhow) seems to be that most firms and OECD nations economic outlook is modest for 2007 (compared to 2006's robust growth rates).

Nonetheless, some firms are going to be negatively affected by increasing receivables management problems because of the subprime sector. As the Wall Street Journal noted "tax- preparation giant H&R Block Inc. said it wouldn't be able to file its third-quarter financial statement on time, citing its need to account for "rapidly declining loan values" at its subprime-lending subsidiary." From an accounting perspective, this must be a nightmare indeed. Proper valuation and receivables expectations are difficult for many firms. How risky are risky loans? What percentage of bad debt loss should be calculated in advance? These types of calculations are notoriously vulnerable to accountants inability to find accurate crystal balls, and therefore anticipate future economic events which may drastically affect their expectations.

That said, it may well be that many firms are not following the conservatism accounting principle as much as they should if they are having to vigorously downgrade receivables expectations for a loan sector that is, by definition, at higher risk of default. Some firms though, are bullish on this kind of news. With more risk-averse firms fleeing the market, all the better to seize the opportunity to buy up sub-prime market share at cheap prices and huge upside potential.

March 09, 2007

Like many people in world, its an effort to stay organized, and to get all the tech gadgets you own - desktop/laptops, cell-phones, pda's all supporting this common objective. Right now, I've been using Palm Desktop (which keeps my desktop and palm tx speaking the same language, and synchronized more or less very well). However, this system falls short of the major feature of "calendaring" systems - allowing more than one individual to synchronize schedules together (e.g. there are many systems businesses use that allow this - Google Calendar, CorporateTime, etc).

Even, a (by all indications) popular (and free) service like Google Calendar is great by itself - but how can you integrate it with your pda? Since I use and am very happy using Palm Desktop (the time management & calendaring system that comes standard with palm pda's), I want to synchronize these two systems.

Techno-blogger Ah Knight has a set of instructions which I've followed to the T and the system works very well:

one group for one calendar ( in google calendar we can have multiple calendar )

select the new created group , choose Calendar -> Subscribe to a Calendar, enter your ical address of your google calendar, starting from now it will fetch the changes that you add through google calendar

November 27, 2006

Finishing up Managerial Economics and Management Information Systems at Segal, and since there are finals and term papers due, I'll be out of commission until December 15th atleast. Happy holidays everyone :)

November 09, 2006

NIGERIA - Canadian Olympic Gold Medalist Daniel Igali was stabbed in the back three times by burglers in his home in the city of Yenagoa.

Igali said in a telephone interview Wednesday night that he was set upon in his home by four robbers in the city of Yenagoa. They stabbed him three times in the back and made off with cash, laptops and phones.

''I think they stabbed me because they wanted me to give them everything,'' Igali said. ''It was a bad experience.

''I don't have any respect for people from the underworld who would come into your house and taken everything you've collected over the years.'' Story from Canada.com

It is unbelievable that this could happen to Daniel Igali of all people. Mr. Igali is a trully incredible individual, who has perservered through an impoverished childhood, a complete lack of facilities in his hometown of Eniwari, and yet has achieved his goal of becoming an elite wrestler - achieving the highest Olympic Honour. In his spare time, he has founded a school for children in Eniwari, begun studies for a Masters degree in Crimonology at Simon Fraser University, has run for political office in BC, and continues to attract huge audiences as a motivational speaker.

"Daniel is the President of the Igali Foundation Inc., a Not-For-Profit foundation that caters to the needs of underprivileged children all over the world. Daniel spends a considerable amount of time on the "Keep Sweating Tour", where he speaks to school kids, different groups and corporations about the benefits of healthy living, making right choices, and of being good neighbors to each other."

What is so impressive about Mr. Igali is that after have achieved greatness, he has not forgotten his roots, nor rejected his capacity to give back to communities which are in such dire need of investment in basic infrastructure - such as schools and hospitals.

On the subject of charity, volunteerism and philanthropy, it is an unfortunate truism that 80% of these contributions are made by 20% of the population. In a world where "being famous" eclipses the concept of living a life of 'meaning,' Igali is an inspiration.

November 07, 2006

Six years of a Republican majority in the house of representatives and senate came to an end today. George Bush will somehow have to manage a concilliatory tone when he calls expected Democratic speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi for a congratulatory call in the next couple of days. While news of whether the senate will pass into Democratic hands is uncertain at present, the implications of a republican president and a democratic congress hold several possibilities.

As some CNN commentators suggested, the results of this midterm election may portend a deadlocked, ineffective next two years, defined by a congress which challenges presidential power in ways Mr. Bush has never before experienced, and a president who can use his veto power to thwart congressional actions.

Others noted the possibility that Mr. Bush and the Pelosi-led house will strike a centrist balance, aiming to pass moderate legislation and actions which may satisfy an empowered alliance of moderate republicans and conservative democrats.

As far as policy on the Iraq war - the key issue in this election - Mr. Bush is not likely to change the course. He has nothing to gain politically from a pullout, and little to lose.

Attention now turns to the broader implications of this election. Is this result nothing more than a vote against the Republicans, as opposed to a decision actively in favour of the Democratic party's agenda? Most analysts suggest that, at this point, this is a referendum against the status quo, and the extent to which the GOP represents that unhappy set of policies.

Nonetheless, the disquiting last-minute surge in Republican support, as well as the nail-biting insecurity among Democrats over their ability to obtain a victory - despite an extraordinarily favourable political environment - suggests that popular support for the Democrats may not necessarily accompany this victory. In fact, it may simply allow a temporarily weakened Republican party to re-energize while they prepare to vigorously compete for the 2008 presidential campaign.

To succeed long term, the Democrats must turn their image around with this victory, and establish a reputation for competence, effective centrist social and economic policies coupled with rigorous defence of their constituent's interests. Alternately, the greater prominence their party has achieved holds the risk of highlighting a continuation of their historically lacking party organization and inability to inspire mainstream voters.

November 02, 2006

Sometimes its better for your sense of optimism about the world to just not listen to the news. However, it is generally unavoidable if you're at all out and about these days. Its times like these that it becomes necessary to do your own small part, and just wonder at the plight of humanity at the present time.

Will we survive into the next century? What untold millions or billions will sufffer because of our lack of foresight now?

In economic terms, how can we stop individual nations from engaging in short-term economic self-benefit at the expense of long-term catastrophies? If the costs are not internalized, economically inefficient markets continue to exist (in industries, vehicles, etc, that pollute at a negative level of net social benefit, and as well, within fishing operations that cumulatively lower net social welfare). In short, how can externalities be countered on a global scale?

I am not altogether pesssimistic about the future. I think things will get worse before they get better, and we will pay a higher price for our slow reaction to disastrous courses of action, but the capacity for change has not yet developed a critical momentum. As the consequences (costs) of the status quo become ever-closer, the incentives to change become much more potent.

October 28, 2006

Although paperless organizations are nothing new, it is still phenomenal to read about one of the companies which instigated and succesfully demonstrated this capacity before so many others:

"VeriFone, a leading manufacturer of credit verification systems, is well known for its virtual organization. The company was founded in 1981 by an entrepreneur who hated bureaucracy. By 1990, it was the leading company for transaction automation with products and services used in more than 80 countries. VeriFone's office building in northern California houses a nominal corporate headquarters. In several plants around the world, its processing systems are actually made, and its distribution centers facilitate rapid delivery to customers. most corporate functions however, occur at multiple global locations, including Texas, Hawaii, India and Taiwan. The company seeks to put its people in close proximity to customers and emerging markets, which results in about a third of the employees traveling roughly half of the time. This strategy gives VeriFone first-hand information about business opportunities and competitive situations worldwide.

At the heart of the company culture is constant and reliable sharing of information. It is a culture that thrives on the chief executive officers ban on secretaries and paper correspondence. Everyday the chief information officer (CIO) gathers yesterday's results and measures them against the company's plans. Systems post travel itineraries of everyone in the company and track which people speak what languages. Using IS for simulation and analysis, the CIO pulls together information from databases around the company for an e-mail newsletter to everyone in the company." (From Pearlson & Saunders; Managing & Using Information Systems: A Strategic Approach, 3rd ed. 2006)

In contrast, the public-sector organization I work for employs hundreds of secretaries and thrives on paper correspondence. We still use bucketloads of manilla file folders. Manilla file folders. Our departmental database systems don't connect automatically to our ERP. Key business process information is still stored in large part, in the minds of individual employees. Reading about progressive organizations like this is both astounding, especially considering that we are in the year 2006, and there are still organizations that use outdated 1960-style business processes.

While some companies use electronic, online calendars facilitated by any number of applications (Microsoft Outlook, CorporateTime, Google Calendar...) we still print out paper copies of the week's goings-on and distribute them by hand to each staff member. If 6 changes are made to this document, 6 seperate batches of calendars are printed out and distributed. Arguably, this single organization kills more trees than some small countries.